Yep, it’s a 20mm Madsen automatic cannon – circa 1936. And check out that bull bar in front!
Vintage Saturday: Danish Technical
Bolt Action Rifles
Belgian 1886 Rifle Trials Report (Translated to English)
Our friend Thibaud has spent some time translating a report from the Belgian 1886 rifle trials into English – thank you, Thibaud! He notes that the text has a lot of specifically Belgian terminology and […]
Bolt Action Rifles
Schultz & Larsen RPLT-42: Danish Occupation Rifle
When the Danish Coastal Police was formed under German occupation to patrol the Danish shores, they needed rifles. Rather than use valuable military arms, the government turned to the noted sporting and target rifle manufacturer […]
Accessories
Book Review: SOE Equipment Air Dropped in Europe 1940-1945
A while back I posted a review of a great little paperback account of Winston Churchill’s Toyshop – the development of clandestine warfare gear for use by saboteurs and resistance movements in occupied Europe during […]
Great picture, but it doesn’t stand a chance against the infamous Danish Nimbus antitank motorcycle with its 200mm cannon.
I believe you mean 20mm, although the image of a motorcycle with a cruiser cannon is fairly entertaining.
That’s nothing compared to the mighty Vespa 150 TAP, aka, the motor scooter that mounts a 75mm recoilless rifle.
Info here:
Damn! I have to remember to not put carrots around URLs when posting here.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vespa_150_TAP
There is no new thing under the sun, eh?
From the Link which Big Al kindly provided a few weeks back, to a readable online version of Chinn’s the machinegun vol 1 p233
Here’s “Samuel M. McClean Demonstrating His 37-mm Automatic Cannon.”
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ref/MG/I/img/MG-1-121-79.jpg
Mounted on a very cool old truck
Here’s the link to the root menu
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ref/MG/
What a great idea for a military application. Sit on and elevated and exposed flat deck track. Just need a big fluro orange sign saying please shoot me on it to complete the package?
Think of the Huey door gunners. The whole idea is to make the other guy keep his head down so he can’t take advantage of your exposure.
Technically (no pun intended), this kind of mount (for travel only) is called a portée. Brits used them extensively in the Western Desert (presumably because they didn’t have SPs or towed AT/AA guns). The smaller guns could be fired from the truck bed, but generally weren’t; portée rigs went as big as 25 pounders (the UK equivalent of our most-used 75mm artillery pieces) and you wouldn’t want to impart the recoil from that (even hydraulically managed recoul) to a Bedford QL. A 2 pdr (37mm AT gun, maybe. 6 pdf (57) probably not. 25 pounder, no way in hell.
Here’s an exemplar of a survivor. http://www.shoplandcollection.com/heavies/65-austin-k5-gun-portee While they talk about firing from the truck bed there are reasons this is tactically unsound.
1. you have to pick fore or aft before you load up the gun. You can’t change its orientation once it’s in place.
2. this 6 pdr is an AT gun. If the tank is in range, so are you. (PZ III: 50mm high velocity, this era PZ IV, 75mm low velocity guns). And the tanks have armor on — you don’t. Advantage Rommel.’
Duh. I meant “because they didn’t have SPs or Tank Destroyers.” Obviously, they DID have towed AT guns. The portée was lighter and faster to emplace and displace (it dispensed with the ammo limber and separate crew vehicle, everybody rode in the truck and the ammo was there, too.